An intense genealogical reconstruction of Camus's political thinking challenging the philosophical import of his writings as providing an alternative, aesthetic understanding of politics, political action and freedom outside and against the nihilistic categories of modern political philosophy and the contemporary politics of contempt and terrorisms.

Table of Contents:

-- Introduction : an 'untimely' political thought for serious times
-- The twentieth-century politics of contempt
-- 'Undisguised influences'
-- Tragic beginnings mystic 'communion' with nature
-- An artist's point of view
-- Rethinking participation beyond 'romanticism'
-- A stranger to the world of ressentiment
-- Commencement of freedom
-- Sisyphus or happiness in hell
-- Nothing is possible, everything is permitted
-- The absurd and power
-- Combat with nihilism
-- Between Sade and the Dandy
-- Conclusion